4-18-2014
"Bambulá" is a Spoken word video by artist 'Q&A' performed with the Bomba Group Grupo Bambulá and is set to release on April 21st of this year. The video itself offers rich insight into Puerto Rican culture and history as it features Bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican folkloric music, as a core cultural component. This collaboration features ‘Q&A’, a young poet, with Norka Nadal and her group Bambula; Directed By Dayv "Mental" Cino of
www.MALAandMENTAL.com.
‘Q&A’, known for his poetry that addresses current social and cultural issues, had been longing to complete this project. “I wrote the poem at 4am and once I finished and read it completed I just knew I had to do this.” He reached out to Dayv Cino who is well known in the NYC underground Hip Hop scene for his clothing line (Revolutionary Minded Gear) and video production, he was more than willing to offer his services. ‘Q&A’ says he then reached out to Norka Nadal Hernandez, his Bomba teacher who instructs on the Mayagüez style of the genre, confident in her talent and musical ability.
The video opens with a song segment performed by Norka Nadal Hernandez and Grupo Bambulá followed by the actual spoken word piece, and ends with a classic Bomba song. Bomba music was brought to Puerto Rico by enslaved African peoples who were forced to labor in the islands plantations. Although the music was played during festivities in the face of adversity it was also utilized as a tool for organizing rebellions against colonial slave masters. The inclusion of Bomba itself is a statement as the music has been marginalized and suppressed for years due to its powerful African roots. Bomba only became widely acknowledged in recent years through to some of the work by the ICP (Puerto Rican Cultural Institute) and especially after the release of the film Raices which added to its popularization. Though appreciated by many, the film watered down the genre in the eyes of many artists to present a palatable version for the mainstream. The ICP, though preserving Bomba, has left it largely to performances and historic presentation, essentially separating the communal component.
“Bomba just had to be in this piece. The poem has Bomba in it!” says ‘Q&A’. He continues, “If you look at Bomba, like many other traditions, it’s not fitting to say it’s a thing of the past if we wish to uphold and preserve it. Bomba always spoke of current events, communal gossip, and social issues. It shouldn’t just be placed on a pedestal as a cultural point of reference but also carried in the present. By putting Bomba with my spoken word I intend to let the youth know that this is our tradition and it’s ours to take so long as we carry it right, respecting those before us. I was honored to collaborate with those like Norka and Joe who’ve taught me what they know. Bomba holds the tears and voices of our ancestors and we must ensure that it echoes past our lifetime for its rightful heirs to hear. ”
The video does not offer any watered down attempt at mainstream recognition but a real and authentic Bomba format beginning with a song sang by Norka Nadal Hernandez with a Yubá Mason rhthym. In the video it becomes clear that a gathering is about as the spoken word performance sets in. “A sense of community was important”, says artist ‘Q&A’. “Bomba, this music of the oppressed and marginalized, is based off of communal solidarity and there was no question in my mind that a sense of community had to be stressed.” Yet the sense of community strongly takes on a spiritual tone in ‘Q&A’s’ spoken word piece. ‘Q&A’ elaborates: “I wrote the piece with those before me in mind, those who suffered and who struggled to maintain their identity in the face of adversity, those who fought and quite literally died for liberation; when I wrote the piece there was literally no ‘me’, only the cause of which I was expressing. I suppose it was about remembering and honoring them. The title had to be Bambulá.”
Bambulá is a word found all over the African diaspora. In New Orleans and Dominican Republic it’s found in musical forms and references. In Cuba, Kimbambulá refers to a feast for the dead. In Puerto Rico, although it also refers to a rhythm, the word is meant to mean “remember”. The poem itself references a Belen/Bala, an Afro-Puerto Rican ceremony for the dead typically involving music. Such lines convey parts of such a ceremony:
“And so we played and sang the first songs
And they danced
And we danced the next songs
And they remained and listened
Though they were never seen…”
“I wanted the listeners to feel as if they were there. There was a chance that they wouldn’t fully comprehend such a gathering until I further implied the meaning of it later in the piece. But I must ask what spiritual experience is ever fully clear, scientifically explainable, or logically crystalized? None. They’re left to be opaque and mysterious. I felt like listeners had to know that evoking our past was sacred and that the names of such honored dead mentioned were to be respected.” The poem dives into the historical as several names are mentioned, categorized in their struggle and respective epoch; first the Taino leader that fought against initial the Spanish conquest, the Africans who fought and struggled against their enslavers, and those Puerto Ricans who struggled against colonialism. The poem hints that that struggle continues today. The piece goes further to address one of Latin America’s controversial topics, race:
“We are the Native’s survival and triumph,
We are the African’s revenge and victory,
We are the mulatto’s righteous path,
We are the mestizo’s bloodline never to be denied,
never to be denied, never to be denied again.”
“Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, we suffer from an identity crisis. Though we come in every shade with all conceivable phenotypes, we’re taught to value the lighter, to believe that white is beautiful and black is ugly. These are the values instilled in us courtesy of the conquistadors who slaughtered and pillaged native Taino villages and enslaved African to work in captivity as they routinely violated and raped them. Why would I want to conform to the standard of such brutes? Why would I want to internalize the racism brought by them in me and my family? My grandfather was a Black Puerto Rican, Francisco Pizarro and this Black man was the role model for our family. I will never deny him.”
**Note from East River, the blog host** I will provide an update when the video of the work is made available for viewing.
